


Special Alluring Coloration

by aireyv



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Entomology, Fluff, Gen, crawly friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-16 21:56:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16503437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aireyv/pseuds/aireyv
Summary: "mantis cant stand humans so he gets a pet."Mantis can't stand humans so he spends an obscene amount of money importing one from the east.





	Special Alluring Coloration

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hingabee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hingabee/gifts).



> Title aped from Hugh Bamford Cott ( _Adaptive Coloration in Animals_ , 1940).

“Mantis.”

“Hm?”

“What the hell is this.”

“What does it look like, Octopus?” Mantis said snidely.

“It looks like a bin full of crickets on the fucking kitchen table?? Mantis, this is unsanitary.”

“How is it unsanitary?” Mantis said, annoyed. “They are not messy. And feeding them the fruit and vegetable scraps from what you cook is _certainly_ more sanitary than leaving them to rot in the sink.”

“ _Scraps?_ ” Octopus said, “that’s a whole banana you’re giving them!”

“They like bananas,” Mantis said, re-affixing the bin lid.

“So do I. And now I can’t have that banana because you gave it to a bunch of bugs. That was my breakfast, Mantis.”

“What else do you expect me to do? I have to gut-load them.”

“That sounds horny.”

Mantis glared at him, picking up the bin irritably. “These are feeder crickets.”

“What? Aw, did the boss catch another lizard? They always escape, you know, there’s no point in getting a whole bunch of food for them.”

“No, I appropriated the tank after the last one got out. My little pet only recently graduated to small crickets, though.”

“Wh…?”

Octopus tagged along all the way back to Liquid’s office, which was hypothetically off-limits to the rest of FOXHOUND but functionally fair game. (Ocelot had been caught rifling through Liquid’s paperwork on multiple occasions, but Liquid was too lazy to write him up for it.) On the bookshelf behind Liquid’s desk was a glass tank occupying half the shelf and various pet supplies and a space for the cricket bin - and other mysterious bins of feeder insects - on the other half. The heat/UV light that normally sat on the lid had been removed, though the interior of the tank was the same vivarium set up Liquid had poured hours into the first time he decided to start bringing wild animals into headquarters to make his office more “lively”.

“…you sure there’s something in there?” Octopus said, peering into the tank as Mantis put his crickets back.

“A _Hymenopus coronatus_ , she’s pink. I raised her from an egg and her name is Svetlana.”

“Uh… huh. Cute. …I don’t see her.” Something pink _should_ have been easy to find among the green and brown, but then again it _was_ a bug… probably hiding…

Mantis made an obnoxious little chiding _tch_ and took the lid off the tank. “She is right here,” he said haughtily, laying his hand flat by a clump of leaves. “Just wait a moment.”

Octopus duly waited. After close to a minute, a tiny little pinkish-red bug came wobbling over on spindly legs. It was very round - undoubtedly better fed than its owner - and seemed to not fear Mantis, since it climbed onto his hand with no hesitation. Mantis raised it out of the tank and gave Octopus a closer look; despite his usual condescending air Octopus could tell he was genuinely proud of his insect-child.

“Cute,” Octopus said. “Orchid mantis, right?”

“Mmhm.”

“Should have known. Uhh, ‘Svetlana’ is kind of big for her, don’t you think?” Pretentious, too.

“I think it suits her,” Mantis said defensively.

“Well, how large is she going to get?”

“About six centimeters. She’s almost full grown already, you can see by her coloring…”

Asking Mantis about bugs was a trap, of course. He had a tendency to take any vague invitation to ramble, though on the plus side when he started lecturing someone about bugs it was because he simply liked to talk about them, as opposed to all the _other_ things he liked to lecture people about, which he did because he was irritated. So it was kinda nice to hear Mantis being all positive and excited about something, even if Octopus was pretty much tuning him out, paying more attention to Svetlana’s slow trek up Mantis’ arm and to his shoulder.

“-—order a male from Indonesia soon to see if she is interested in breeding… sadly, they do not live very long, so I would like to be able to have a new set of nymphs to raise. Of course, I would need more tanks, it is generally alright for _H. coronatus_ to be kept in small groups but with any species of mantid there is always a risk of nymphs eating each other, so it’s prudent to separate them. I was thinking about getting those plastic critter-keepers, but assuming most of the eggs in the oothecae survive that would give me somewhere between fifty and hundred nymphs and there simply is not enough space on the boss’ bookshelf for that. I would need to use other rooms, too. Also, naturally I would have to increase the feeder insect supply as well…”

“Just as long as you don’t set up shop in the kitchen,” Octopus said, “that’s unsanitary.”

“Of course not,” Mantis said stiffly. “If they _were_ in the kitchen I would be worried anyway, _H. coronatus_ nymphs look like ants and I can just see you miscreants killing them because you think it’s an infestation—“

“You haven’t even _got_ the male yet and you’re already worrying about your grandkids? Aww.”

“Grandkids?!”

Nothing could be so horrifically offensive to Mantis as implying that he wanted to reproduce somehow, so Octopus was rather predictably chased out of Liquid’s office. Svetlana was still riding on Mantis’ shoulder, which only added to the absurdity of the situation. The door slammed behind him, and Octopus could easily imagine Mantis muttering angrily to his pet about how rude Octopus was and possibly apologizing to her for joking about her having any kind of biological relation to a filthy self-hating _human_ …

“Touchy,” Octopus said, smoothing his pants.


End file.
